Different because one's open the other closed. I have the Grado HF2's and those are PHENOMENAL but need a good amp. I also have the 840's because I got them on a great deal for $125. Those are also good but closed. I like them so much I even travel with them despite the fact that they are enormous and a bit of a pain to pack. I'll take these over active noise cancellation any day.

Anyone have any strong feelings on the Shure SRH440? I'm sorely tempted by the AKG K271 MkII, but they're obviously a titch more expensive. I'm looking for something to use at work with my headphone amp that will block out my more irritating coworkers. I used my Etys yesterday, but they're just not comfortable for hours on end, plus they take longer to take off/out than regular headphones if someone needs to talk to me.

Most of the time, I use my Senn HD570s, but since they're open, I have to have the volume up pretty high on loud music to block out the irritants.

You can just look at the design of each and see what would be more comfortable. Notice that the design of the 271 are not typical of most closed headphones with the clamping (see 440, mdr v6) of the pads to the head. The 271 is more typical of an open headphone frame.

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Strongly consider those. The measurements show them to be very neutral (using 5 different positions on the head).

In a separate look at headphones, I know in Ratsound's own testing of a bunch of headphones, his listening tests rated them as tonally close. IIRC they rated well in their low frequency behavior as well. Nice set of headphones.

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Iím armed and Iím drinking. You donít want to listen to advice from me, amigo.

I have to chime in here. Great reviews on the AKG 701,s. I own the Beyerdynamic DT 990 600 Ohm driven by the Schiit Valhalla tube amp. It is a combo made in heaven. All said and done the cost was just under $700.00. Was it worth the cost? My God yes.The sound is just as good as my M22's.

I ran across these last night on CNET.com. I don't own any Beats but I have listened to a few (and disregarding Monster), they're fairly decent for their type of target music. I also don't mind the styling, although I'm a bit tired of seeing them around every adolescent's neck that I run across. I do agree that they are WAY overpriced.

These seem to be styled similarly and I personally like the flat headphone cable. I wish I could buy a separate one for my Shures. But for $99, it seems like a better value. The only negative is that it's not completely sealed since it sits on your ears vs over your ears. I read several reviews on the net and most are positive and agree that the value is there.

On a side note, I was in China last month and saw a lot of the fake Beats in many of the shops. I considered taking a pair home just for kicks. I even demoed the Beats Solo in the local Apple store just to get the right reference point. Some fake ones 'look' very close, even down to all the packaging and cables. However, you can only fake a look, you can't fake a sound. They ALL sounded so muffled, as if you were listening through a pillow. (And I know that's not how Beats normally sound...) However, try explaining what 'muffled' means to a shopkeeper with limited English. No small amount of cash was worth paying for any of those things.